Maybe Cornell football gets good in time for Ivy League football to play in the FCS competition. There is a glimmer of hope for Ivies to play in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs:
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/11/1/ivy-league-considers-football-postseason/
https://www.thedp.com/article/2024/11/ivy-league-football-fcs-playoff-penn-athletics
Haven't seen anything on this yet in the Daily Sun. So, see this in the Harvard Crimson. (I am curious to why The Crimson had to get a quote from a Brown football player to cover the odds of an Ivy school doing well in the playoffs:
Quote from: Jo B. Lemann and Tyler J.H. Ory, Harvard CrimsonThe tradition of The Game — the much-anticipated faceoff between Harvard and Yale — could also be affected as the rivalry matchup always comes as the season's last game.
Approval would allow Ivy teams to compete for a national title in the FCS, the second-highest level of college football.
In an October interview with The Crimson, [Harvard Athletic Director Erin] McDermott said there "was some talk" regarding the proposal within the Ivy League. "We'll see," McDermott said.
Ultimately, the final decision would be made by the Ivy League presidents — though it would also need the approval of the athletic directors, including McDermott.
[Brown senior quarterback Jake] Willcox noted that the top two Ivy League teams are usually ranked in the top 25 nationally. In the final FCS poll of 2023, Harvard received six top-25 votes. Undefeated Dartmouth is currently ranked the 22nd best FCS team nationally.
The FCS dates to 1978 and a four-team playoff. It's now 24 teams with eight first-round byes, so the winner plays 3 or 4 games. The championship is now in early January in Texas. The playoffs bump against finals but no more than exams for spring sports such as lacrosse. FCS winners have included Ivy competitors in other sports: Villanova, Delaware and UMass (since upgraded to pure D1 FBS). North Dakota State (9) and South Dakota State (2) have won 11 of the last 13 titles.
First it only bleeds if they get in
Then they need to win 2-3 games to extend it
But its ok that baseball has a ivy tourney then NCAA things that are multi day events across 3 weekends and lasts a month
teams are grinding thru finals beyond graduation.
Fball would be week 1 of playoffs over turkey day. not much school going on then
they would have to get into week 3 to mess up with finals
So most years 1 one team might have a conflict if they got to week 3-4
Final game is during Jan break
If two teams go in great.
But lets punish the fball kids because basketball has games From Nov to March and then up to 4 more weeks if they play well.
Basketball barely even pauses for finals anymore. Was that an actual Ivy change? I thought there were rules around competition during finals, but I feel like some of the fall sports have been starting earlier as well, so maybe some of the restrictions around when most teams can compete went out the window when I wasn't paying attention.
More games are being played in many or most sports. Football in the Marinaro era was 7 Ivy plus 2 non-Ivy opponents. Now it's `10 games. Hockey in the unbeaten 1970 season was 29 games; last year we played 35 games including 2 regional NCAA games and had we advanced past Denver, we could have played 37. It also feels as if players spend more time in the off-season staying in shape. In the seventies some players described off-seasoning conditioning as limited to the aluminum curl.